Last week as I was trying to vacuum my Subaru, my Kirby vacuum blew up and quit working all in an instant. I was so shocked and sad. I immediately told Hailey I was sad and that I thought the vacuum died. She told me that maybe it went to vacuum Heaven! I had Brady look at it and he noticed the fan was missing a chunk out of it. I called the local vacuum shop and took it in immediately after he told me he could replace the fan for $55 dollars. Yipee!!!

I picked up my Kirby friend last night (from Vacuum Heaven) and took it for a test drive on the living room carpet. Worked just like it has been - great! I am so happy to have it back working. The dustbuster just doesn't cut it when it comes to large areas!

So I was wondering - what kind of vacuum cleaner do you own? Right before or shortly after I got married (can't remember exactly), one of those lovely door to door salesmen came to the door trying to get me to buy a brand new Kirby. The G4 at the time. He went throught the whole demonstration and by the time he was done, I was the proud, POOR owner of an expensive Kirby vacuum cleaner. This was my first experience with salespeople at the door and apparently I caved. I knew they were good because we had one in our home growing up and my mother gave me her old one when she moved on to her beloved Oreck. So now Brady and I had to make payments on this $1000 dollar vacuum. I got better telling the magazine salespeople NO! I loved my Kirby though and still do. It really is a good vacuum. I have never had any trouble with it in the 10 years I have had it nor has it even been serviced for maintenence (which probably should have been) until last week.  

Since then I have often wanted the Oreck my mother owned because of how lightweight it was but wondered if it really cleaned any better. My sister has a Dyson and seeing those commercials of the latest Dyson with the ball make me want that one BUT I still wonder about the performance and dropping $549 on a brand new Dyson when my Kirby works just fine seems silly and wasteful right now. So if you have a vacuum you absolutely like, I would love to hear why for future reference. 

* The Kirby did get paid off (Brady paid most of it) a year after we were married. We went to Las Vegas to go see the Star Trek  area they just put in place in one of the hotels. Brady is a huge Star Trek fan. We went with a group of friends. They all knew how to gamble. I of course did not (still don't) and can't even play card games. I don't think Free Cell and Solataire count! So after a day of watching everyone gamble and not win anything major, Brady handed me a $20 dollar bill and told me to go have some fun. I had been watching the dollar slots for awhile and noticed certain machines would pay out every so many turns. So when a lady gave up her spot, I sat down for a my chance. These machines would pay out $80 or $90 at a time. So when my first money dropped my frame of thinking was "Hey this isn't my money so I can now use this money and keep trying for more!" I had to go find Brady because I was too nervous to go cash in my buckets of coins. I wound up winning over $500 dollars. Brady says it was more but I can't remember now. Anyway that was my first and only time to Las Vegas and my gambling experience. I bring this up because that money went to pay off the remaining balance on that KIRBY vacuum and I didn't feel bad about it at ALL. After all I did get talked into buying something way out of my price range back then and come to think of it even NOW!